It was highly probable that for precaution's sake other messengers
bore the same dispatch, but he was anxious to arrive with his
nevertheless, and he wanted, too, to arrive first. The last now seemed
impossible and the first improbable.
The crackling fire came nearer. Owing to the lack of percussion caps,
Pemberton had ordered his men to use their rifles sparingly, but
evidently a considerable body of sharpshooters near Dick were attempting
a flanking movement of some kind, and meant to carry it out with bullets.
He was impatient to see, but prudence kept him in his covert, a prudence
that was soon justified, as presently he heard voices very near him and
then the sound of footsteps.
He rose up a little and saw several hundred Confederate soldiers passing
on the slopes not more than a hundred yards away. They went south of him,
and he recognized with growing alarm that the wall across his way was
growing higher. When they were gone and he could no longer hear their
tread among the bushes he slipped from his hiding place and went directly
toward Vicksburg.
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